


On the shore of the wide world

by marginalia



Category: Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Bridget Jones's Diary - All Media Types, Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-13
Updated: 2005-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-07 10:46:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10358679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia
Summary: It's like this. The only way these books/movies make any sense to me is with some sort of slashy backstory. They cannot possibly -really- be fighting over Bridget.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's like this. The only way these books/movies make any sense to me is with some sort of slashy backstory. They cannot possibly -really- be fighting over Bridget.

After, Mark says that it was never meant to be serious. 

Daniel is certain that he's lying. Whether to Daniel or to himself is unclear, but Mark had never been not-serious a day in his life. At least some part of him had been a middle aged lawyer from the day he was born.

Not that Daniel had ever had a problem with the middle aged lawyer bit. It was strangely charming how Mark managed to be so starched and ironed at sixteen. A bit of a miracle, all things considered. Daniel had lain awake at 3am some nights and wondered what it would take to wrinkle him up a bit.

It didn't take much to wrinkle up Daniel. Not at first. He was still horribly awkward, limbs several inches longer than they had any right to be and never taking instruction properly. At least he wasn't spilling soup down his front anymore; that was a start. He took up smoking, never managed to have his shirt tucked in, and discovered that if he let his hair grow out people stopped trying to look him in the eye. 

Everyone except Mark. Mark seemed determined to figure him out, and so he had a head start on the rest of the world when Daniel finally grew into himself, lanky, sarcastic, and artfully befuddled, a combination of genetics and emotional defense mechanisms.

::

They had a better excuse for spending time together when they were thrown together as partners in a physics lab. Mark was rubbish at the practical and Daniel wasn't much better - the only difference was that he didn't care. He made a game of making Mark laugh, a difficult task sometimes, but very much worth the effort, and he made an art form of getting Mark to skiv off lectures - the stakes were higher but so was the payoff. A forged note could get Mark out of Latin and down to the trees beyond the pitch, cheeks flushed first with fresh air and soon with confession.

On weekends Daniel would lure him up to the roof, bearing contraband past a bribed prefect. They'd smoke and talk about nothing, then drink and talk about everything, stumble into bed long after lights out and nurse headaches all through chapel the next morning. 

::

End of term exams were approaching, and Mark virtually lived in his carrel in the library. If it hadn't been for the stress of evaluation, he would have enjoyed the time, books stacked all around him, perfectly organized and waiting for him to extract detail, no sound about but the odd squeak of a book trolley or the occasional cough from Osborne four carrels down, stricken with hay fever.

"Revising, Cleaver," he said when Daniel appeared behind him, pressing all his weight down on the back of Mark's chair and breathing heavily on the back of Mark's neck. "You should look into it."

Daniel sighed, reached into a pocket, and drew out a cigarette, which he waved in front of Mark's nose. "Overrated. And you need a break. You're going cross-eyed."

"Should have thought you'd think that an improvement. Besides, what about all this?" Mark indicated the books and papers lamely, argument already lost.

"No one's going to steal your bloody Keats, Darcy. Come on already."

Mark followed him up to the third floor - "Periodicals, no one fuckin' about ever" - and into the toilets. Daniel directed him into the last stall, rose on tiptoe to pop open the window, and handed a cigarette to Mark. He struck a match and cupped his hand to protect the flame, lighting the cigarette and not so accidentally brushing his fingertips against Mark's face in the process. Mark took a drag then, "Here," softly, leaning in to light Daniel's off his own, hearts racing, the only sounds the crinkle of burning paper, a distant faucet dripping, and their own shallow breathing.

They smoked in silence for a while until Mark came to a decision, ground out his cigarette under his heel, and placed his hand on Daniel's arm. "All right?" he said. Daniel swallowed hard and nodded slightly, then leaned in and kissed Mark, messy and fierce. Later, it was all a blur in his memory, a hand tangled in Mark's curls as Mark pushed him back against the wall below the window, strange new kisses, bumping noses and laughing, then Mark hard against him, their fingers working the zips, desperate and fast. Mark's hand a new angle, a miracle, Daniel's brain short-circuiting when he gave Mark's cock a slight twist and he tasted Mark's words - "ogodogod" - sweet in his mouth.

Daniel doesn't remember the awkward space after, the clean-up, Mark stuttering that he had to get back to his books.

He only remembers that Mark began it and that it changed everything.

::

"It was never meant to be serious," Mark says at the bar, a few years later. "It was just a schoolboy thing." It's costing him much to say even this after all this time, to admit that it happened. Daniel can see it, but he doesn't care. It's not costing enough, it's not hurting enough, it's not hurting Mark as much as it's hurting Daniel and that is what really matters. They are finally talking about it and it is not enough.

Daniel reaches for a joke, for a sly remark, for something to pretend that he's not been sliced through, but all his words scuttle away. Mark doesn't see, he's going on, telling him about this girl, about how Daniel will love her, about how it's early, but he thinks there might be something to it. 

Daniel makes all the right responses, proffers a few excuses, and pays his tab. Mark watches him leave. 

He hopes it will be all right someday, and Daniel will stand up beside him as he steps out into the wide world.


End file.
